Infinity 11: What Have I Done NOW?
by SheriAnn
Summary: Krieg wonders where he's gone wrong. Bridger prepares for the notorious Bridger Riot Act.


Mandatory Boring Disclaimer: Hmm . . . I don't own any of the characters from seaQuest, Voyager, or DS9. I'm just "borrowing" them for a little while. However, I'll return them, no harm done (well, to anyone but Lucas . . . this _is_ ELF, you know!).   


Legal Disclaimer: Any characters or events that seem to mimic real life are purely coincidental . . . and, hey, if there is anyone meeting nasty gray aliens with claws, I want to talk to them! hee, hee>   


Alternative Universe: Well, folks, because I'm insane enough to combine _seaQuest_, _Voyager_, and _DS9_ all together into one plot, there are some obvious changes! You'll notice the "obvious changes" quickly, I think.    


Rating: PG-13. (PG for "Pretty Galling"!) Actually, it is PG-13 because of some violence and bad language (not overly strong, though).   


Archiving: Just ask first. I'll probably say yes. :)    


Cautionary Advice: (Clearing throat) Be prepared for a hefty dose of "suspension of disbelief." There is a degree of the intentionally ludicrous here. :) But remember . . . I warned you!   


Length Advisory: Be prepared for a long haul! Currently, I haven't even set a cap on the number of parts involved . . .   
  


Summary: _seaQuest,_ plus _Deep Space Nine,_ plus _Voyager_ equals . . . lots of fun! Here's the short synopsis: Captain Bridger commands a starship, the _Voyager_ both reaches earth and doesn't, and the _Defiant_ gets sucked into yet another wormhole! Hmmm . . . crazy, isn't it? Well, of course it is . . . this is Sheri writing! :)   
  
  
  


Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (snicker, snicker) . . .

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


[SCENE: Back stage of an auditorium. Popcorn litters the floor, crumpled cups pour out of an overfilled garbage can, and the smell of overcooked butter permeates the air. Slowly, a FIGURE appears in our view . . . He is hammering at a door as we focus on his face: dark hair, dark eyes, annoyed frown.]

BRIDGER: I know you're in there. You might as well give up. (Listens to only silence. Shifts feet) C'mon, Krieg. I don't have all day.

KRIEG: (Voice heard from off stage. His voice is muffled) No. (Pauses) You can't make me.

BRIDGER: (Sighing, then rolling his eyes, as if asking the gods "why me?") Oh, please, Krieg . . . this is ridiculous. We've got work to do. Lots of it. (Thinks for a moment) You know you can't stay in here forever. There aren't any cheeseburgers in there. You'll die of cheeseburger starvation if you don't come out now.

KRIEG: (Groaning. The Captain had a point) Cheeseburger starvation is probably better than whatever it is _you're_ gonna' do to me once I get out of here . . .

BRIDGER: And what do you think I'm going to do to you, Krieg? Eat you alive?

KRIEG: (Muttering) You might, at that . . . (Clears throat, raises voice as he hears BRIDGER'S exasperated sigh) You're going to Read Me the Bridger Specialized Riot Act, in a loud, obnoxious voice made _just_ for me . . .

BRIDGER: (Innocently) Me? Read you the Riot Act? Never.

[The door is suddenly thrown open. BRIDGER sees KRIEG'S holding a large, heavily bound leather TOME OF DOOM in his hands. BRIDGER waits curiously as KRIEG saunters out, dragging the immense TOME with him]

KRIEG: (hefting the TOME up, huffing and puffing from the effort) Look, sir . . . here're _the rules_. (Opens TOME; several layers of dust fly away and he coughs. Finally spots what he's looking for and whoops triumphantly) See? Here's Section VI, Sub-Section 10.a, Paragraph 3.111.54. _And I quote_: "If at any time LUCAS WOLENCZAK is for any reason and by any hand injured, and if at that same time BENJAMIN KRIEG is vaguely within the remote vicinity of the said injury, though the remote vicinity may be within light years of the injured party . . ." 

KRIEG: (Looks meaningfully at BRIDGER, who is studiously studying his shoes) " . . . _if_ this shall at any time happen (and, as a general rule of chance and probability, it shall happen in most circumstances), then The Most Honorable and Trustworthy . . ." (KRIEG tries not to snort at this) ". . . Captain BRIDGER shall in all due haste and concern, in all wrath and ire, proceed to declare KRIEG a direct and Necessary Cause of the injury. He shall then read BENJAMIN KRIEG the Official, Full, Uncensored, Undiluted, Unadulterated, Unabridged, Heated, Twenty-Minutes-or-More Captain BRIDGER Riot Act."

[BRIDGER runs a hand along his chin, trying to forget the script SHERI has just handed him.]

KRIEG: (Looks at BRIDGER, pointing at the infamous paragraph) See? It's there! In the ELF Writer's Code of Honor itself!

[BRIDGER looks away guiltily as KRIEG is hauled on stage by unseen forces . . . He then sighs as he rehearses his Official, Full, Uncensored, etc., etc., Riot Act]   
  
  
  


_And with that, let us return to poor Ben Krieg, who is about to face_   
_The Wrath of Westphalen . . ._   
  
  
  
  
  
  


Infinity: A Crossover   


Part Eleven   
What Have I Done _Now?_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


From somewhere inside his fuzzy brain, Lieutenant Benjamin Krieg, junior officer and highly imaginative supply officer, heard a groan of pain--immense pain, in fact. As he heard the sound, he looked towards it, wanting to know who could be in so much pain.

He was startled to discover that the groan had come from his own throat when another moan forced its way past his lips. 

Lord Almighty, what . . . Krieg choked on the thought . . . what had he done _now?_

Judging by the pain even now exploding through his skull, Krieg had a pretty good idea of what he'd done. He thought he even recalled some of it: not a lot, of course, but some of it. Yeah, he remembered something about . . . a woman, perhaps . . . maybe two . . .

He moved his head, then moaned once more as the pain turned into a heated vise circling his brain, squeezing ever-so-slowly until, finally, his brain squished into pulp. Oh, God . . . and from the way it was feeling now, Ben was sure his brain was about to reach pulp stage. 

Man, what had he done? He couldn't have drunk _that_ much booze, now could he have?

As he thought of the likelihood of such a possibility, Ben cringed. Bridger was going to kill him. Bridger was going to sew his skin into a new rug for his Ready Room. At the very least, Bridger would send him for a long dive from his current Lieutenant's rank right down to Ensign . . . no, Ensign wouldn't do it . . . probably Crewman . . .

Why was it he could only clearly see the wisdom of following Bridger's orders when he was already in boiling water?

Speaking of Bridger's orders . . . though his brain right now couldn't remember much of what had happened in the past twenty-four hours, Ben _could_ remember all too well what had happened last month. Even now, it made his stomach churn. He didn't think he'd ever seen Bridger so . . . well, angry didn't even begin to cover it. Pissed. Rankled. Ready to murder.

So Ben had engaged in a little . . . private enterprise? What was the big deal? It wasn't as if he'd ripped anyone off--well, not really.

They'd been on a planet off in the middle of nowhere-land, doing their regular boring work: charting a few new territories for the Federation databanks. It had been about as unchallenging an assignment as Krieg could recall; hell, he'd take a fight with the Borg over another assignment like that one. Anyhow, he'd been doing his share of remedial work--recording this, measuring that, trying to look interested in a few gray rocks--when something had captured his attention.

Riveted his attention, in fact.

Nestled in the harsh grasp of several rocks had been a glowing, gem-like stone. The native residents of the planet called the stone _umak_. Krieg called it his one-way ticket to the private pleasure dome he'd always dreamed of on Risa, the planet of love and lovers. He could picture it even now: his own pleasure dome to rival anything seen across the galaxies, women everywhere, hot, simmering weather . . .

Needless to say, Ben's opportunity-seeking fingers had itched for umak. After contacting several shady and highly disreputable sources, he'd managed to buy several loads of the stones for next to nothing. Bingo: he'd been on the road to wealth, fortune beyond his wildest imagination . . .

And then he'd been caught--not only caught, but caught with his opportunity-seeking fingers right on the goods. To make matters worse, he'd been caught by none other than Commander Ford, the upholder of propriety and decorum.

With the exception of food and water, Ben's hide had been canned for two days before anyone had bothered seeing him in the Brig. On the third day, in had stomped Captain Bridger, heat blazing from his eyes and scorching Ben upon contact. Ben had swallowed hard.

Well, after a long "conversation" in which Bridger had ranted and raved and Krieg had obligingly listened, Ben had been left in the Brig for five more days, then allowed out. He'd had to personally return each and every umak stone purchased from the planet and its overly generous residents, explaining in detail to anyone who asked what, exactly, he'd done. That had been Part One of the Bridger Penalty Plan. Part Two had entailed writing each and every one of Bridger's reports--all two hundred of them. Ben swore Bridger had invented reports just for him. However, Part Three had been the worst duty of all: Cleaning Detail. Bridger had deactivated the self-cleaning function on board the ship, then had smiled brightly his way. So, for the next three weeks, Ben had cleaned and scrubbed, scrubbed and cleaned, the hallways of the usually self-cleaning _Infinity_, his dreams of a pleasure palace steadily slipping away . . .

Finally, only yesterday, Bridger had decided Ben had paid his dues. He'd released him of the Bridger Penalty Plan, allowing him--most graciously--to join the rest of the crew as they went on a short shore leave to the M-Class planet Myomra. That day, Ben had been scrubbing Deck Four (for the hundredth time) when Bridger had called him to his Ready Room. Ben had arrived to find Bridger fairly shouting down at him with yet another Bridger Lecture. But this one had been different, for at the end of it had been a dim light growing steadily brighter.

Bridger's words had throbbed in his skull as Ben had waited for Bridger to simply get it all over and throw him out the door. Bridger's words had certainly indicated this might be a likely outcome, until Bridger had suddenly said, a small grin playing at his lips, "You, Lieutenant Krieg, may go below with the rest of the crew on shore leave."

Ben had stared at this. Shore leave? For him? It seemed there was hope for him, after all . . .

Bridger had continued, the small smile quickly disappearing. "You may go, Lieutenant, but hear me out on this." He leaned in towards Krieg, brows drawing together. Krieg flinched from that glare. "While you are down below, you _may not_ transport, teleport, import, exhort, or extort any goods or supplies or objects or trifles or knick knacks, to the locals below, to their neighbors, to their neighbors' neighbors, to any alien planets in the vicinity, or to any satellite settlements as yet unknown to myself. Do I make myself clear, _Lieutenant_?"

Ben had gulped. The threat had been clear: if he screwed up on this, Bridger would probably demote him so far that he'd never see the light of officer status again. 

After leaving the glower of Bridger's eyes behind, Ben had jumped in jubilation--then straight into the nearest transporter to beam him down.

Yeah, that had been it . . .

He groaned once more. So, what foolish things had he done on Myomra? He knew he'd been told to behave, but Krieg also knew that he just couldn't do that. Behaving was boring. He remembered going to some bars, frequenting a few . . . unsavory places, going to some more bars . . .

Vaguely, images of a blond-haired boy-ensign and gray-skinned alien-like things with leathery scales struggled at the outer rims of his consciousness, but he simply shook them off as hallucinations.

Pretty damned good hallucinations, if anyone asked him.

That alien brew he'd been drinking must have been better than he'd thought it was. Either that, or they'd laced it with some fairly interesting hallucinogens. He knew better than to drink alien beer; after all, you just could never tell what they put in it.

He sighed. Well, he supposed he had to face the music sooner or later. Krieg would have preferred later any day, but he also knew that, with the way things were going, it would probably be best if he had it out with Bridger now. At least that way, after Bridger had flailed him alive, demoted him, thrown him out the nearest vacuum--whatever Bridger deemed fitting for him--he'd have the worst over and done with so he could skulk away to his quarters.

Carefully, he forced his eyes open. Ai-yaiii! The light was painful. It made his stomach swish. He blinked, then groaned.

_Okay, Benny Boy, time to face them, _Krieg told himself. He looked around, trying to force his eyes to focus on his surroundings. Just a little more, and he might be able to see his own hand . . .

When his eyes finally focused, what Krieg saw startled him: more than ever. Sitting beside him, one of her hands tapping a nervous, worried dance across her leg, the other hand tapping a datapadd up-and-down, up-and-down in perfect time to her fingers, was Doctor Kristin Westphalen. She looked worried. As he watched her, her gaze traveling years away, lifetimes away, Ben realized that she must, truly, be concerned over something: she'd never let him simply stare at her for several seconds. That the uncannily observant Kristin Westphalen hadn't noticed his stare was proof enough for him that something was seriously wrong.

He cleared his throat. When she still didn't turn, Ben started sitting up, trying to distract her from wherever her mind currently resided.

Doctor Westphalen's attention suddenly snapped towards him. She stared, then smiled happily, almost joyously. "Lieutenant! You're awake!"

Hmm . . . not quite the response he'd been expecting. He'd been thinking more along the lines of a frown, a grimace . . . certainly not a smile. Maybe today was just his lucky day--but, somehow, Krieg doubted it.

She leaned towards him, feeling his pulse before smiling again. "Good, good . . . and how are you feeling today?"

_Today?_ Krieg wondered. That seemed to imply that he'd been here longer than just a few hours. Krieg looked carefully around himself, then back at her. "Um . . . better, I think . . ." he muttered.

"Yes, you seem to be doing better. Your vital signs have certainly strengthened," she told him matter-of-factly. She tapped the datapadd against her knee. "We were all considerably worried, you know."

They were? Krieg's brows bunched together as he tried remembering anything--_anything_--that could explain this strange turn of events. He remembered bars, then a few women he'd been interested in following, then . . . damn, again, something about gray aliens and a blond-headed kid. Maybe they had him on some extremely potent painkillers.

She studied Ben's face for a moment, then sighed. As he looked up at her curiously, Doctor Westphalen smiled slightly. "You don't remember anything that happened, do you, Lieutenant?"

He suspected if he told her what kept coming to mind--gray aliens, rocks dissolving, that type of thing--he'd be committed to the funny farm faster than he could squeak out, "help!" So he simply kept his mouth shut.

Doctor Westphalen smiled slightly, then rose. "I'll be right back, Lieutenant. If you need anything, just holler. Someone will come help you soon."

Krieg watched her leave, then sighed. Damn. Just when he thought he might get some answers out of her.

With a groan, Ben settled back against the biobed and grimly considered what was likely to happen when Bridger heard of his latest fiasco . . . whatever that fiasco had been. For though Ben couldn't remember the details of it (in fact, he couldn't remember much of it at all), he felt certain he'd done something pretty bad to end up in Sick Bay with Doctor Westphalen worriedly watching over him.

Yep. That was definitely the last time he'd drink alien booze, no matter how good it looked.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


*****

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


BRIDGER: (Peeking into the text, his face suddenly emerging where once were words) Hey . . . do I get to read him the Infamous Bridger Riot Act next? I've been practicing, y'know . . .

YOU: (Staring, disbelieving, at the text that is suddenly speaking back at you) Where'd _you_ come from? You're supposed to be in the story . . .

BRIDGER: (Looking around, then grinning) SHERI was getting tired, so I decided to take over for awhile. What do you think of that? I mean, the characters writing the story? It's pretty fun, don't you think?

YOU: Pretty weird, you mean. (Thinking, then sighing) But this _is_ SHERI'S work we're talking about, isn't it? Of course, it's got to be weird.

WESTPHALEN: (Voice heard from offstage) Oh, BRIDGER-darling, where are you . . .?

BRIDGER: (Ducking back into the text, by all appearances hiding) Damn that woman, she's found me . . .

YOU: But I thought you'd want to chew out KRIEG. I mean, you seem to like it. You do it at least once a story.

BRIDGER: (Blinking, then smiling) Oh, that I love . . . it's just that KRISTIN is going to insist I be nice to KRIEG. (Sighs) Well, I know it's going to happen, sooner or later . . . she'll find me, then SHERI will have her talk me right out of a Riot Act, and then KRIEG will be off the hook . . . Ah, well, such is life.

YOU: (Reminding him with a grin) Uh . . . just remember, there's gotta' be a BRIDGER Riot Act Scene if Lucas gets injured and KRIEG is anywhere near. It's mandatory. So . . . you'll get to work in the scene sooner or later.

BRIDGER: (Grinning quite happily now) Hey, I'd forgotten that. Thanks!

[And with that, Bridger disappears into the text once more, and we are ready to resume our story . . .]   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


***** 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Krieg was restlessly fidgeting with his blankets when Bridger entered Sick Bay. He was surprised to find that Bridger wasn't scowling.

If anything, this new discovery made Ben even more nervous. Bridger was _always_ scowling at him: it was a preordained law of nature. What could have happened in the past few hours to change this law so quickly?

Whatever it was, Krieg was sure he wasn't going to like it. Unless God Himself had struck Bridger with a mighty tough case of amnesia--one that conveniently wiped his memory of all Krieg's misdeeds--Ben was sure trouble was afoot.

With a nod and a slight smile, the Captain pulled up a seat beside Krieg's biobed, watching as Dr. Westphalen sat beside him. He then looked back at Krieg. "Well, Lieutenant, you're looking better."

Ben listened carefully to the Captain's tone. It was even: no pauses, no simmering tone behind the neutral words. Nothing. If anything, Bridger's voice was actually friendly. 

Maybe he was in an alternate reality?

Hmmm. That seemed a pretty good possibility. Perhaps they were just being kind to him, trying to ease his unsettled nerves before they delivered the bad news that he would be forever stuck in their universe. Besides, what with the million or so transporter malfunctions plaguing the _Infinity_ on a daily basis, he could easily have been accidentally rerouted to a different universe. Yeah, that made sense.

"Thank you, sir. I'm feeling . . . all right," Ben finally stated. His eyebrows quirked as he noticed Bridger really looked uncomfortable with this conversation. The Captain kept shifting back and forth in his chair, moving his legs this way and that way. He also kept running his right hand through his hair, a sign Ben had long learned to recognize as agitation--at least, in _his_ Captain on _his_ _Infinity_ in _his_ universe. With an alternate reality Captain, anything was possible, he supposed.

"Ah. Good to hear it." There was a slight pause as Bridger stared momentarily at his hands. He clasped and unclasped them, then clasped them once more, before looking back at Krieg. "I understand you don't remember much of what happened?"

That was the understatement of the Alpha Quadrant. Krieg nodded. "Last thing I remember was going to Myomra, sir." He cleared his throat, noting the Captain's expectant expression. Well, he supposed he ought to get it over with, alternate reality or not. Bridger was bound to behave like Bridger no matter what reality he was in. He'd definitely want a full explanation of what Krieg had been doing on Myomra, particularly focusing on any shady activities. "I remember . . . well, sir, there's just no easy way of saying this, so I'll say just say it." He paused, hoping an enemy ship would attack or an anomaly suddenly appear: anything to get him out of telling Bridger what he suspected he'd done.

Bridger just sat and waited, seeming to have all the patience in the world.

Krieg ran a sweaty palm through his hair. "Well, the last thing I remember was a bar." He glanced surreptitiously at Bridger, then rolled his eyes at the partially hidden smile tugging at Bridger's lips. "There was a lot of alcohol. There were also some . . . women."

Bridger seemed amused. Krieg couldn't imagine for the life of him what Bridger was so amused over. He simply continued with his narration, ignoring the Captain's soft chuckle: "Anyway, I left the bar . . . accompanied . . . and then a few hours later . . ." Krieg paused, watching with disbelief as Bridger tried to suppress a laugh. Yep, he was _definitely_ in an alternate reality. The Bridger he knew would rant and rave if he discovered Krieg had been entertaining alien women--or if he knew alien women had been entertaining Krieg. Clearing his throat, he continued, "After that, I . . ."

Krieg stopped, suddenly not sure of what had happened next. He seemed to recall transporting over, but was that what had really happened?

And what about that damned image of the kid and the aliens?

None of it made any sense. Maybe that alien beer had completely addled his brain cells, after all. "Well, sir, I don't know for sure what happened after that. It's all really muddled."

"You were transported, Lieutenant," Bridger informed him after a moment's silent thought. He sighed. "However, we had a . . . slight problem during the transport."

He knew it! Krieg practically shouted the words out loud: he'd been right. He _was_ in an alternate reality. He just wondered how he was going to get back to his own.

Bridger continued. "We lost you in the middle of the transport beam."

Krieg's mind suddenly halted. What?

"You were, somehow, beamed outside our dimension," Bridger finally admitted, watching silently as Krieg's face lost all color. He shifted in the chair, waiting until Ben seemed ready to hear more. "We were only able to . . . retrieve you about twelve hours ago."

"But . . . but _where_ was I?" Ben stammered, shaking his head. This wasn't quite the turn he'd expected. He'd been thinking he was in another reality right now, not that he'd just escaped it. And that damned image of aliens clawing at him, reaching for his skin, kept intruding his thoughts. "And how did I get back?"

At this, Bridger glanced at Westphalen. The doctor looked from one to the other, then sighed. She chewed at her lip for a moment. "Lieutenant Krieg . . . Ben . . ."

Ouch. Ben knew it was bad if Doctor Westphalen was calling him by his first name.

"You were caught in a fracture in time and space. You essentially were pushed into another dimension, one existing in parallel to our own." Okay. This wasn't too bad. He could deal with this information; after all, it was what he'd initially expected. However, he had a bad feeling things were going to get worse. She cleared her throat. "You were brought back because someone else . . . helped you."

Ben dug his fingers into the biobed's unyielding surface. Damn. Damn! The kid and the aliens. He was pretty certain they _were_ real.

"Ben, do you remember any of this? What happened when you got there? Where you were?" She paused before adding softly, "Who was with you?"

Oh, hell. It was all starting to come back. He'd blinked his eyes, feeling the transporter beam shifting around him--and then it had been as if his body had _lurched_ from within. He had again blinked. As the transporter beam faded, he'd finally seen his surroundings: ice. Cold, streaking winds had whipped through the air, chilling his bones. He'd lost feeling within his fingers in less than a minute. And around him, stretching as far as the eye could see, had been a plain of gray ice, broken only by jagged rocks jutting from the ground.

A sound had caught his attention. Fighting the wind, he'd turned around to see a human body materialize out of nowhere, the distinct shimmer of a transporter beam cloaking the form.

That had been the kid, the one he kept remembering: the kid genius with a Ph.D. in Quantum and Temporal Mechanics. This was the same kid who'd whipped up some theory about creating a wormhole. Yeah, if Krieg wasn't totally wrong in his recollection, listening to this kid talk science had seemed more alien than any alien language he'd heard. Even the Klingon jargon Commander Worf liked to throw his way now and again (in what Ben was sure were insults, but was unable to prove, of course, because he didn't speak Klingon) had been more intelligible.

The silence lengthened. Ben finally nodded his head, meeting Kristin's eyes. What he saw there told him everything he needed to know. He saw sympathy, but also worry--deep worry. Ben shut his eyes for a moment. "The kid. He didn't make it back, did he?"

Bridger's voice broke through the silence next. "No, Lieutenant, I'm afraid he didn't." He looked away, silently cursing himself for incompetence, stupidity, whatever. Obviously, he'd done _something_ wrong if he'd managed to lose two crew members in one day; to make matters worse, he'd failed both of those crew members by somehow managing to leave one of them behind in some godforsaken alien wasteland. Captain James T. Kirk would have had them out by now. Hell, he'd probably have beamed over with next-to-nothing in weapons and managed to conquer the entire planet. Captain Jean-Luc Picard would have solved the problem, too, through wits. But here _he_ was, Captain of a ship more powerful than either _Enterprise_ had ever been, and he couldn't rescue a teenager stuck in a hostile environment.

And he had no doubt that the environment was hostile. The damned claw had said so, as had the blood . . . not to mention the blood-freezing yowls.

_Yeah, just great, Bridger,_ Nathan silently berated himself. _Lose the kid genius on his first day aboard your ship . . . no, not even aboard your ship. He'd not quite made it that far!_

"How . . . how did he end up not making it back? It was his idea in the first place. I wouldn't be here if he hadn't thought of it!" Ben asked, eyes wide against a face suddenly turning unnaturally pale. Doctor Westphalen leaned towards him, feeling his pulse. He simply turned away. "I remember . . . I remember feeling the transporter beam come around me . . . around us. And, then, it was like all hell broke loose." Ben stopped, suddenly shaking his head. "No . . . that's not right. All hell broke loose _before _the transporter beam surrounded us."

Ben looked at Westphalen and Bridger, eyes almost haunted. "You're going to have my head examined for this, doctor, but I can't help it. It's what actually happened." He steeled himself for the worst. "When we got to . . . wherever it was, it was freezing cold. We needed protection, so we climbed inside a cave. Lucas . . . that's his name, Lucas Wolenczak . . . somehow managed to program my di-corder. He sent the message to you. While he was sending the message, we began to hear really noisy howls; it spooked us a bit."

Krieg inhaled deeply, wishing he didn't have to explain this. It was the craziest, most preposterous thing he'd ever heard of. He wouldn't be surprised if Doctor Westphalen threw him in a locked cell and immediately rewired the door to never open again. With a strangled sigh, he explained, "Anyway, a few minutes later--maybe more, I'm just not sure--we started to see . . . well, we started to see the cave walls dissolve around us."

He waited for the explosion, the laugh, or the stare that Doctor Westphalen would obviously direct his way any moment now. But it never came. Westphalen simply watched him with sympathetic, concerned eyes.

"After that, the transporter kicked in, I guess," Krieg finished softly, looking away. He played with a wrinkle in his blanket. "At least, it did for me."

Bridger straightened in his chair, then stood. Sighing softly, he looked at the unhappy Lieutenant. "You're not to be blamed on this, Lieutenant. It wasn't your fault. I don't know if there was anything you could have done." He crossed his arms for a moment, shooting Kristin a quick look. "Doctor Westphalen assures me you're going to be all right. You're to take a few days off to recover before returning to regular duty."

Ben was silent for one moment. After a second's hesitation, he asked, voice soft, "What about Lucas, though, sir? Are . . . are we going to get him back?"

"Make no mistake of it, Lieutenant Krieg. We'll get him back." Unmistakable determination rang in Bridger's voice. "We'll figure a way to bring him home." Bridger didn't bother adding his worst worry: that they would be too late bringing him home or that, in fact, they were already too late. Krieg didn't need that information slammed into him at this point.

Bridger was about to speak further when his com badge beeped. Irritably, he tapped it. "Yes, Bridger here."

Commander Hitchcock's voice rung through, unperturbed in the slightest by Bridger's snap. "Sir, we have an urgent message coming through for you. It's from Captain Sisko on Deep Space Nine."

With a sigh, Bridger quickly gave in to the inevitable. It seemed every time he was even remotely near Deep Space Nine, something went wrong aboard the station. Last time, it had been Bajorans versus Cardassians. Like Captain Sisko, he'd been tempted to just let them fight it out. After that had been some medical emergency involving mutant bacteria strains, a mess he still shuddered over. He suspected there was trouble now, too. He sometimes couldn't figure how Sisko kept remotely sane aboard that station of his. This time, as luck would have it, the bar fellow with the big ears--that obnoxious Ferengi Quark--had probably instigated a riot on the promenade. Bridger wouldn't put it past the Ferengi, especially if the greedy bar owner could get his fingers on a few bars of pressed latinum in the process.

Bridger groaned inwardly before replying in what he hoped was a calm, professional voice, "Very well, Commander. I'll take it in my Ready Room." He frowned. After a second, he looked back at Krieg. "Lieutenant, I'll keep you posted on this. Consider yourself under the direct orders of Doctor Westphalen until she releases you from her care. You're to follow her orders explicitly, right down to how many hours of sleep you're supposed to get. Is that understood, Lieutenant?" 

Krieg nodded, but Bridger knew he'd have to keep an eye on Krieg. If he were any judge of character, Krieg already planned to escape Sick Bay as soon as possible, most likely to try to help get Lucas Wolenczak back. The guilty look briefly flashing across Krieg's face only proved his point. 

With a final stern look directed in Krieg's general direction, Captain Bridger headed out of Sick Bay, already wondering how on earth he was going to help solve whatever dispute had recently erupted on Deep Space Nine. He couldn't blame Sisko for asking for help whenever a friendly ear was within the remote vicinity. He thought he'd call, too, if he were stuck on that solemn gray station, trying to control a pack of thieves, spies, murderers, religious fanatics, and fully-sworn enemies.

Watching the doors to Sick Bay close behind Bridger's form, Kristin spoke up, reaching towards Ben's hand and gently tapping it. "You'll need to rest here for a few more hours, then I should be able to release you." As if she could see the very question forming in his mind, Westphalen smiled slightly. "You were scraped by one of the alien claws. Though the wound was only superficial, there was an amount of toxin in your bloodstream. We needed to clean your blood of the toxin. Right now, it's completely gone, but you'll still need plenty of rest to recover."

Krieg frowned, a nasty memory resurfacing in his mind: Lucas standing beside him, his body closest to the cave wall . . . the wall collapsing . . . a gray claw reaching out from the suddenly melting rock . . . then more claws and more claws . . . 

Then he remembered Lucas crying in pain as a claw tore through his flesh.

With a shudder, Krieg vowed that he would get Lucas back. He'd get the teenager out of the cursed frozen land, and he'd get him out in one piece. He didn't care who or what tried to stop him. He was just going to do it, all misgivings or orders to do otherwise be damned.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
